THE PROTESTANT FLAG OF TRUCE.
By W. N. G.
The efforts of leading ministers of the Church of England to unite with Rome, and their solicitude that their clerical orders be recognized at the Vatican as valid, is well known to the reading public of the world. So also are the repeated advances of the National Reform forces of America to join hands with Rome in seeking enforced Sunday observance and other religious legislation in this country, as well as in the British provinces wherever they exist. But a contributor to the Christian Work, George S. Mott, D.D., would have us believe that the difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism is merely one of adherence to different translations of the Scriptures. He discusses the importance of uniting the flag and the Bible in the public schools, and says:— We would cordially invite our Roman Catholic citizens to unite with us in placing the Bible alongside of the American flag. There has been a remarkable advance among them in honoring the flag ecclesiastically. . . . And why will not their ecclesiastical superiors unite with Protestants in giving the Bible a place in the common school, such as is now accorded to the flag? We do not ask them to put King James' Version there. There is no Protestant Bible, nor Roman Catholic Bible. To talk in that way is misleading. There is only one Bible. King James' translation, which bears the name of Protestant, and the Douay, which receives the sanction of the Roman Catholic Church, are from the same sources, and the difference is restricted to a few words. Each side affixes its own exegesis, but the original is virtually the same. Let us recognize this. Let us admit that we do agree more than we are conceding. If we honor the Bible in our hearts, it will be an easy matter to select from these two versions copious portions of Scripture appropriate for our schools. And so will this long controversy come to a happy termination. For if Protestants and Catholics agree in6this matter the contention is ended. And thus will the Bible have its birthright place in our country, and so will the flag receive renewed honor. But Protestantism was not reared on a pedestal of objection to the version of the Bible then in use, but rather on the fact that the church had practically discarded the use of the Bible altogether. It was the study of the Bible, that which the Roman Church recognized as the Bible, that led Luther to rebel against justification by works, and to preach justification by faith. There was at that time no English version recognized by the Roman Church. The version that Luther studied in the monastery was the Latin Vulgate, from which was translated the English version known as the Douay, called by some the Catholic Bible. As D'Aubigne says, “The Reformation lay hid in that Bible.” Moreover, the protest of the German princes at the Diet of Spires, from which came the appellation of “Protestants,” was not against any version of the Bible, but was an appeal to the Bible, as it was in existence at the time. Here is a declaration from the protest:— There is no true doctrine but that which conforms to the Word of God. The Lord forbids the teaching of any other faith. The Holy Scriptures, with one text explained by other and plainer texts, are, in all things necessary for the Christian, easy to be understood, and adapted to enlighten. We are therefore resolved by divine grace to maintain the pure preaching of God's only Word, as it is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, without anything added thereto. There was no question as to which version of the Bible the Protestants would be governed by. True, Luther translated the Scriptures into the German language in order that the people of that country might have access to it in their own vernacular. There were several versions of the Scriptures then extant, but they were not in general circulation, and the Roman clergy endeavored by all means to keep them from the common people. Protestantism, however, by such a diligent study of the Scriptures as had been unknown for centuries, and by the discovery of better Hebrew and Greek texts, brought out various improved translations in the English language. These have been ignored by Rome, because they were the product of Protestant scholars and not authorized by Roman authority. When any one assumes that there is no practical difference between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism but the mere variation between the King James and the Douay versions of the Scriptures, we maintain that such presentation is “misleading” in the extreme. If this is all the practical difference between the two establishments, to the extent that each can agree to place the scriptural exegesis of the other in the schools attended by the children of both, then what excuse has Protestantism for an existence at all? It is just such advances toward Romanism as is set forth by Dr. Mott and many others, that enables smart Roman priests to effectually lampoon the masses of so-called Protestants of the present day with the very scriptures upon which they profess to rely for doctrine. It is the tendency of degenerate Protestantism to trust in the arm of flesh, the powers of earth, that calls for the protection of the Bible by the Stars and Stripes, as tho' God's Word were not more powerful than all the flags of earth. This is the way in which it is proposed to secure a revival of the Word:— And now we ought to have a revival of the Bible. . . . In almost every house we might wrap the Bible in the Stars and Stripes, and that is the most costly and the most significant cover the Bible can have. It is this tendency, we repeat, to lean upon the power of man instead of the arm of God, that inclines an apostate Protestantism to seek so many pretexts for uniting with Rome and with the secular powers of earth. It was this tendency, this “mystery of iniquity” that did “already work” even in Paul's day (2 Thess. 2:7), which lowered the church to such a degenerate spiritual condition as to make the Reformation a necessity. And, therefore, from the fallen Protestantism of the latter times there must needs arise a new reformation. Such a reformation also lies hidden in the Bible, which also predicts it. See Rev. 14:6-12. By the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the time of the latter rain (James 5:7) may the Bible have its birthright place in the hearts of the people, rather than in the folds of any worldly banner. W. N. G.